


Sight Down

by joisbishmyoga



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, Mementos, spoilers for November, spoilers for december
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-09
Updated: 2017-06-09
Packaged: 2018-11-11 13:23:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11149308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisbishmyoga/pseuds/joisbishmyoga
Summary: The thieves were never the only ones hunting in Mementos.  They're just the only ones who didn't notice that.





	Sight Down

  
He was halfway up the frozen escalator to a rest area, flush with money and strange items he could pawn, when he heard the soft voices.  
  
Akechi paused mid-step.  This was new.  
  
Shadows didn't really speak.  Not without being prodded by an attack.  And it was all very repetitive, to boot: what little they said tended to be along the lines of "you dare, foolish child", rather than conversation.  
  
Then a loud, amused voice rang out through the gloomy platform.  "But man, Joker, the way you curbstomped that horned knight thing was _awesome_!"  and with that Akechi knew what it was.  
  
_Them_.  
  
So.  The idiot Phantom Thieves knew of the secret subway under Shibuya, too, then.  Not well enough to be taking it seriously, though, that much was obvious from the laughter.  Fortunate for them how the small stations seemed to be distasteful to the lumbering tar beasts that encapsulated wandering Shadows.  
  
He climbed over the railing onto the next broken escalator, pressing himself into the deepest part of the gloom against the wall, and took another cautious step up.  
  
There they were, sprawled in the relatively well-lit shelter as if they had no idea of the trap there.  It could take ten, twenty minutes easily to restore one's night vision after they left.  Akechi's own visored helmet had transition tinting, the cognitive kind that worked exactly as advertised on television, but these chumps?  
  
Even as he watched, Joker plucked off his own mask like it was the simple porcelain it looked, vibrant blood-red gloves catching Akechi's gaze as the boy wiped sweat from the upper half of his face with the back of his hand.  As if he couldn't concieve of just compartmentalizing the idea of sweating away.  Some oh-so-literary-hero he was.  
  
"Let's go," Joker said, shutting his team's conversation off sharply.  And yet, miracle of miracles, the lot of them simply gathered themselves up and fell into his wake without protest, as he...  
  
Shit.  Strode straight towards the escalators Akechi was standing on.  
  
Akechi lifted his legs and let himself slide silently back down the escalator rail.  His blue-and-black was perfect to hide in the cool grays and gloom of this line of the subway, and he ducked behind the guard rail at the end of the track even as the five Phantom Thieves came tromping blithely out onto the platform.  
  
He could shoot any of them right here.  Right now.  They _didn't even check their surroundings_ as the stupid cat thing leapt out onto the tracks and turned into an ugly, battered old van with a tail, rumbling and rattling like it was about to die in a great belch of filthy smoke from every orifice.  
  
A silenced bullet wouldn't do much to the corrugated metal, except perhaps sting when it holed a panel.  Or, if he shot obliquely, scored a line of its dirty paint off.  And who cared about a cat thing, anyway.  
  
Akechi sighted down the barrel at the loudmouth.  That bright hair was such a perfect target.  It very nearly glowed in what little light there was.  But, no.  No, the shot would just rattle around in that empty skull and be wasted.  Boring.  
  
The model, then?  She had an agency.  Someone would bother to look for her.  That was certainly enough reason... but the search would only be for professional interest.  Protecting an investment.  Her disappearance could even be spun to sell more copy: the tragedy of Ann, like that one Latina singer in the Americas some twenty years ago.  Entertainment journalism at its finest.  
  
She got in the car and he lost the shot.  
  
Joker, then? Akechi thought, shifting targets and settling the sight right on the boy's ear, as he crossed behind the car to get to a door on the far side.  But he was so... _fun_.  Refreshing.  He'd dared stand up to Akechi during a live broadcast.  But, more interesting, was what he _hadn't_ done.  He could've pointed out how Akechi had "accidentally" insulted the Phantom Thieves in front of a full studio audience of their rescued victims.  Anybody else would've, so Akechi had been composing his oh-so-sincere apology and readying his dismayed face when... the boy hadn't done that.  
  
He had to keep someone that interesting around for a while longer.  He just had to.  
  
Which left... Niijima-kun, still standing on the platform and eyeing the van as if she wasn't sure how much it counted as 'alive' right now.  Poor, fastidious little rich girl.  She might have to touch rust, so sad.  
  
Niijima Sae would be so worried once she noticed her sister wasn't coming home.  How long would it take?  A week?  Two?  Perhaps, if they had the SIU Director foist more of the paperwork on her... three?  The stress of being a prosecutor hadn't yet started to mark that pretty face.  Perhaps, though... perhaps, between the work and a missing little sister...  
  
They could let it burn for several days.  No leads.  No return.  Interrogations at school, the rumors about Kaneshiro... and then...  
  
Oh so innocent Akechi Goro.  Not naive, just too easily distracted by his deductions to realize what he was saying sometimes.  "I hate to say this, Niijima-san," he would murmur, gazing at some point deep within the marble floors, oblivious to the world, with his arms folded and his fingers thoughtfully cupping his chin, "but... there aren't that many ways for runaway teenage girls to survive."  Then, sucking in the remaining words as he realized he said them aloud, he'd turn a stricken, apologetic look on her, one that let him drink in her open horror...  
  
It would be priceless.  
  
But they needed the Phantom Thieves for a little while longer.  Alive, intact, and, most importantly, unalarmed.  
  
Akechi let the gun sight fall, and watched the cat drive off loudly enough to attract every Shadow in the place.  
  
Idiots.

**Author's Note:**

> I initially gave Akechi a laser gun, but then Wren did some research and we think he has the same silencer-and-gun combo he used to shoot Akira. I'm not actually sure he knew he could use cognition to make a fake gun work in the Metaverse, not until October: at this point he certainly doesn't know Mementos' name.
> 
> EDIT: Not the exact gun he actually used to shoot Akira, since he stole that from the guard (thanks for reminding me, heyyyy!!!!!), but the same model. Police issue.


End file.
